The present invention relates to a partitioning method for a tape medium, and more specifically, to a method of determining a boundary of adjacent partitions when dividing storage areas on a tape medium into at least two or more partitions logically.
Generally, media partitioning is one of the features implemented in LTO (Linear Tape-Open), which is an open format for tape storage media. When the media partitioning feature is supported, one physical tape medium can be logically partitioned such that it virtually serves as multiple tapes. This feature has made it possible to independently reuse any one of the logically demarcated partitions instead of reuse of the whole tape medium. However, the media partitioning feature requires that the sizes of the partitions obtained by logically dividing the medium be defined prior to actual use of the tape medium. As a result, it may occur that the partitions, when actually used, are not necessarily suited to the original use plan as the size of the partition is too large or too small, making it difficult to efficiently use the full capacity of the tape medium as a whole. Therefore, if the size of a partition can be dynamically changed according to the write-in situation of the data on the tape medium, the efficient use of the capacity of the tape medium will be achieved.